In a humiliating confession, MSNBC admitted this weekend that Friday their flagship show, “Morning Joe” was a long, drawn out lie.
“Day after Thanksgiving! Woo! I’m stuffed,” host Mika Brzezinski said in the opening monologue, packaged to appear as if the show was being broadcast live to viewers. She complained she accidentally left the turkey guts in while cooking their meal.
“Joe didn’t notice, he ate the bag,” co-host Willie Geist joked. “It was good! Well, you know, the game made up for it … How was your Thanksgiving?” host Joe Scarborough asked guest Rick Tyler.
“Very successful, although the conversations were interesting,” Tyler replied. “I bet!” chirped Brzezinski.
Of course, it was all a lie.
The MSNBC hosts and their guests repeatedly pretended to be live on-air but avoided talking about the biggest news stories of the day… because the show had previously been recorded Wednesday. Besides removing the small “Live” graphic in the bottom corner of the broadcast, the network did everything they could to present the show as a live broadcast.
MSNBC admitted to the deception over the weekend, but the damage was already done to the network’s already-smeared reputation.
Industry insiders quickly criticized the networks stunt.
Mika and Joe take it way beyond fake news and get caught doing an entire fake program: https://t.co/0AFJv31A9i
— MARK SIMONE (@MarkSimoneNY) November 25, 2017
https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/934507436399980544
By Monday, even President Donald Trump had weighed in on the controversy —
The good news is that their ratings are terrible, nobody cares! https://t.co/I7h4Ryin3h
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2017
Of course, pre-taping their shows is a practice that’s standard in the cable news industry. Sean Hannity, for example, tapes his shows during the afternoon and Fox News broadcasts it later that evening. Bill O’Reilly did the same thing for years. It’s no secret.
So why did MSNBC feel the need to lie?
Simple: Cash.
Viewership trends show people often prefer live broadcasts. So to get more advertising dollars, “Morning Joe” lied about being live on-air… when they weren’t.
The stunt begs the question: If MSNBC is willing to lie about something as trivial as this… what else are they willing to say?
— The Horn editorial team